More On Bentleigh

There’s a sublime irony in council calling one of its structure planning documents the Building Transition Plan. ((uploaded HERE)According to council’s ‘vision’ the objective is to “manage the transition between housing densities’. If this is indeed the objective then we have to scratch out heads and wonder how on earth the following can even be contemplated –

Potential eight storey buildings directly abutting 4 storey buildings

Rezoning 2 storey buildings to either 3 or 4 storey buildings and then to claim that this Manage(s) growth in a way that responds to Bentleigh’s suburban residential character.

The above comments relate to the Bentleigh structure plans, but they apply equally to Carnegie as well as Elsternwick. Here’s what’s planned in greater detail.

Translated this means –

The areas marked in green (currently zoned for 2 storeys) will now be either 3 or 4 storeys.

The areas marked as PUZ6 are designated as a potential 8 storeys. Please note that these directly abut 4 storeys – yet council has the gall to call this ‘transition’!!!!!!!

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7 Responses to “More On Bentleigh”

Cannot believe the garbage I’m reading. “in order to manage the transition to the strategic sites” the answer is to allow higher buildings and more apartments. Has anyone considered that lowering the height from 8 stories would be a better option?

It would be intriguing to know how many homes were downsized from 4 to 3 storeys and how many are being given the green light for more development. I’m assuming that we are seeing a lot more in the second category for highly unjustified reasons.

The background reports are practically devoid of real justification except that they do make the admission that the residential zones were poorly applied. That must leave a lot of egg on the faces of returning councillors.

It’s all been reversed engineered. The outcome was predetermined and the challenge has been to marry up the background information. Impossible task though, can’t be done, all the background details actually suggest an opposite outcome.

Reverse engineering ignores details and reality and as you say Gaps the intent is to get to the predetermined outcomes. Those outcomes are obvious – growth and more growth and to hell with what this will do to residential amenity and lifestyles for thousands of residents.

On the details I have not seen one scrap of evidence to support the idea that allowing a 53 square metre of office place below scores of apartments is going to do much for employment and it definitely won’t include the ratio of 1:1 that someone wrote about a while ago. All that will happen is more cafes and $2 shops that will employ cheap and young labor. Whether or not each one of these new businesses will survive with the increased competition is in the lap of the gods and the fickleness of the general public.